HPRC Fitness Arena: Family & Relationships

Happy Halloween from HPRC! Review some safety tips for a great holiday this year.

HPRC wishes you a very Happy Halloween! Halloween can be a fun family holiday, with costumes, trick-or-treating, parties, and food. But before you jump all in, review some safety tips to keep this holiday fun and safe! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights some tips: Don’t trick or treat alone or stop at dark houses and do wear reflective tape, examine all candy for evidence of tampering, avoid homemade treats, and use a flashlight. Visit the CDC website to read the full article.

If fights with your loved ones last longer than the argument itself, then check out this strategy for refocusing your mind and calming your body.

When you find yourself in an argument with a loved one, it’s important to be able to move on afterwards without being burdened by negative feelings. But sometimes the negativity can hang on after the argument itself is over, and can make interacting with the other person difficult. It’s important to work out those negative feelings so that they don’t fester and wreak more havoc in your relationships.

Here’s how: When you find yourself in the middle of an argument, take a time-out before you become too worked up. It’s easier to shake off negativity at this stage. Stay levelheaded enough to stop the argument, walk away, focus on something else, and make yourself focus on positive thoughts about yourself, something else, or your loved one. While you are doing this, also engage in some stress-management techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation; you can learn about them in the Mind-Body Skills section of HPRC’s website. By refocusing your thoughts and letting go of stress in your body, you’re more likely to feel calmer, slow your heart rate, and be less reactive to the other person. Once you’re calmer, you’ll probably find it easier to interact more positively with the other person and do or say things that can enhance your relationship.

Coming home from deployment as a single Warfighter? Check out HPRC’s 10 Performance Strategies for easing back home.

HPRC’s Performance Strategies “For single Warfighters coming home” gives you helpful tips for returning home after deployment if you are single. It highlights suggestions that manage your expectations (as well as those of your family and friends), as well as ideas for easing back into “normal” life, establishing an at-home schedule, increasing your support system, and other important aspects to consider.

The way you respond to someone when they share good news can either enhance or detract from your relationship. Learn how to strengthen others with “Active Constructive Responding.”

At the Warrior Resilience Conference V in August 2013, representatives of the Comprehensive Soldier & Family Fitness (CSF2) program discussed one of the resilience-promoting skills that they teach for strengthening relationships: Active Constructive Responding.

Active Constructive Responding shows “authentic interest” where sharing creates a deeper experience for both individuals. For example, when someone shares a positive event with you, the best response is to show interest or excitement about what he or she is telling you, followed by a positive conversation about it. By doing this you can be a “Joy Multiplier.” By comparison, it’s important not to do any of these:

Kill the joy by focusing on possible negatives about the event (being a “Joy Thief”).

Bring up something that happened to you, turning the attention away from the other person, or completely ignore what you were told (being a “Conversation Hijacker”).

Respond to the other person as if distracted and/or with limited interest (being a “Conversation Killer”).

Exercise is an important aspect of healthy child and teen development. Learn about guidelines and tips.

Physical fitness is important at any age, and it’s especially important that children begin leading healthy, active lifestyles early on. Regular exercise for kids can build strong muscles and bones and promote overall health. Exercise can also boost kids’ self-esteem, improve sleep, and stimulate learning in school. But do you know what kinds of exercise your children or teens should be doing? Check out HPRC’s Answer, “Put some fun in your children’s fitness,” to find out.

Learn tips for strengthening your family from a Total Force Fitness perspective from a recently released DoD Crisis Support Guide.

The recently released report from the Department of Defense, “Supporting Military Families In Crisis,” offers information for families about what to do in a crisis as well as how to prevent crises. The guide focuses on suicide prevention, following the Total Force Fitness perspective, but the information applies to many other areas of military family life, especially the section titled “Building a Resilient Family.” HPRC can help your family with many of their suggestions:

Keep your mind fit: Check out HPRC’s Mind Tactics domain for how to go about it.

Build resilience through coping skills and other strategies: Find information on building resilience in the Mental Resilience section of Mind Tactics.

There may be times in your life when you feel isolated or all alone. Connecting with people can help you find meaning in life, feel better, improve your mood, and beat boredom. Afterdeployment.org has a tip sheet—“Beating Isolation”—with ideas for how to overcome loneliness that include making plans to hang out with someone, reaching out to people you know, and getting involved in your community.

Learn how “capitalizing” on good news can help build stronger relationships.

In relationships, “capitalization” refers to the process of sharing good news with one another. It’s easy to sympathize with buddies when times are tough, but studies have shown that responding to good news with support and enthusiasm helps build stronger relationships between individuals. So remember to receive good news from coworkers, friends, and family with enthusiasm. It can not only strengthen your relationships but also create a positive environment.

Learn about all the areas HPRC covers and what “human performance optimization” is.

The Human Performance Resource Center is here to serve Warfighters and their families, commanders, and healthcare providers. If you’ve visited before, you probably know that we focus on “total force fitness.” But do you really know what that means—or how HPRC got started? If you’re curious, check out this PDF that describes HPRC, what we do, and the vast amount of information we cover. In addition, you may have noticed that we use the term “human performance optimization” throughout our site; this article also explains what that means.

A new app for promoting military family resilience—Focus On The Go—has been released in partnership with the FOCUS (Families Overcoming Under Stress) resiliency program. It has a variety of activities and resources for your entire family, including skill-building games with more than 40 levels for a variety of ages, including parents.

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